Contamination’s Common Cause
- and a CureMoisture measurement for medical equipment,
drug and application packaging, QC and the lab

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Water vapour is everywhere
and causes more problems than most other things put together. It can de-activate
and contaminate drugs as well as cause medical devices to fail. Yet it
is incredibly useful when, for example, as superheated steam it sterilises
bandages and syringes actually through the packaging.

The problem is that most seals
and materials that act as a barrier to liquid water allow water vapour
to pass straight through, virtually unhindered.

The only way to ensure that
no inappropriate vapour can pass through is to test it. This is particularly
the case as the permeability of a finished package is often wildly different
to that of the materials it is made from – so technology leader
Versaperm has introduced both a Moisture Vapour Transmission Meter (MVTR)
and a comprehensive vapour permeability laboratory testing service.

The meter can measure to an
accuracy of better than one part per million and is around 100 times faster
than conventional gravimetric techniques. As an added bonus it can be
configured to measure the permeability of most other gases, including
Hydrogen, Helium, Hydrocarbons, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon.

It can be used on huge range
of medical, laboratory, drug and QC materials or enclosures – from
foil laminates to inhalers and from analytical instrument enclosures and
seals through to packaging. It can also provide measurements of substances
that might otherwise be decomposed by normal water content measuring techniques.

Sensitivities are in the PPM
(parts per million) or PPB (parts per billion) range depending on the
gas. As well as manufacturing the instruments, Versaperm offers a water
vapour permeability laboratory service for companies that need to test
samples on an irregular basis.